


Love's Proper Exercise

by moonlighten



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dancing, Historical Fantasy, M/M, Magic-Users, Pining, Pseudo-Regency Era, Shipoween Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-05 19:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21213917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlighten/pseuds/moonlighten
Summary: Edward Blackmore has been so consumed by his work that he's avoided evening engagements for over a year. After such a long absence, he perhaps should have attended a quiet dinner party or two to ease his way back into the social scene, but instead he chose to accept an invitation to a ball.It's a decision he regrets from the moment he steps foot into the crowded ballroom, and he regrets it all the more when he later discovers that his friend, the charming Lord Hugh Lightholder, is also in attendance.





	Love's Proper Exercise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonster/gifts).

"There is magic held deep within the earth," Edward says, "and it is released into the air whenever a farmer tills their land or the ground itself shifts beneath our feet. A person can then draw it into themselves with a breath and, if they are sensitive to its influence, it can change them. One might think of it as a close cousin to miasma - just as potent, just as transformative, but its power is constructive rather than destructive."  
  
His companion looks intrigued for the first time since Lady Harding introduced them. "Are you a practitioner of the magical arts, sir?" he asks.  
  
"Alas, no," Edward says. "Mine is only an academic interest. I study magic and endeavour to write about it."  
  
"A novelist, then?"  
  
His companion sounds eager still, but again Edward must disappoint him. He shakes his head. "I am penning a scholarly work on the natural philosophy of magic."  
  
The spark of interest that had briefly brightened the young man's pale blue eyes dims, and he seeks solace in his wineglass. He stares intently at its contents, as though some great wisdom or fantastical truth might be uncovered from their depths if he looks hard enough.  
  
Whilst the most accomplished of divinators can prognosticate the future in wine, Edward has learnt from his research that tea leaves provide the clearest picture of it to the gifted amateur.  
  
A fascinating titbit, and one which Edward intends on sharing with his companion, but as soon as he opens his mouth to speak, the young man cuts him off with: "It appears I am in need of more wine. If you'll excuse me, sir."  
  
He does not wait for Edward to make any reply before scurrying away with his half-full glass to rejoin the crowds milling around the margins of the ballroom. Edward watches him go with some disappointment but even greater self-recrimination.  
  
Like any skill, the art of conversation with strangers is one which atrophies with disuse. Edward has not picked up an oar since he graduated university and would never dream of entering a boat race on the morrow and yet here he is, attending one of Lady Harding's private balls after a year spent avoiding evening engagements entirely.  
  
Just as he would need to scull around a pond a time or two in order for his muscles to relearn the push and pull rhythm of rowing, he should perhaps have first attended a dinner or card party to reacquaint himself with the back and forth rhythm of small talk before subjecting himself to this particular trial by fire of sociability.  
  
Still, it is too late for regrets. No matter how seductive the thought of his own quiet fireside might be, it would be unconscionably rude to succumb to it this early in the evening without the excuse of a sudden illness, or at least the fiction of one believable enough to pass muster with the shrewd and perceptive Lady Harding. As Edward knows himself to be far from a compelling actor, he must endure.  
  
He sips on his wine and tries to look welcoming and at ease in his surroundings, but his performance is clearly one of his less convincing efforts as no-one approaches him. The odd lady and gentleman do look towards him in passing, but only in passing, giving him no more than a skimmed glance before dismissing him from their minds and moving on.  
  
Except for one man; a bow-legged, sinewy man dressed in regimentals who meets Edward's eyes boldly and does not look away. His gaze is so intent, so focussed, that Edward feels pierced to the bone by it and thusly pinned in place, like a preserved butterfly mounted on an entomologist's cork board.  
  
His skin prickles with heat, his throat runs dry, but he cannot move, not when the man walks towards him with the steady, prowling gait of a predator or even when he steps up crowded so uncomfortably close that Edward can smell the madeira on his breath  
  
"Mr Blackmore?" he says, sounding so sure of himself that it is more of a statement than a question.  
  
Edward had not expected anyone to know him here save for Lady Harding, so the man's certainty both shocks and discombobulates him. "Yes, sir?" he says apprehensively.  
  
The man's mouth splits into a delighted grin. "I thought it was you!"  
  
"You have the advantage of me, sir," Edward has to admit, loath as he is to claim ignorance in the face of such affability. "I'm afraid I don't recall your name."  
  
If the man is wounded at all, he takes pains not to show it. His laughter booms out loud and hearty. "I'm Nicholas Elkins. Colonel Elkins now," he says. "We were at school together."  
  
The name rings no more bells than his face had done. "Erm…" Edward says, playing for time as he desperately tries to think of a polite way of confessing that Elkins is apparently so forgettable that he did not retain a single memory of him over the course of eight years.  
  
Thankfully, Colonel Elkins steps into the breach to save him.  
  
"I'm not surprised you don't recognise me," he says, still smiling. "You always did have nose stuck in book. Never looked up. You still do that, do you? Read?" The last word is pronounced in a tone of withering scorn, as though it's some unsavoury youthful habit Edward really should have grown out of.  
  
"Well, yes..." Edward says, feeling oddly ashamed of himself.  
  
"I was just saying to my wife that you didn't look to have changed a bit, and it seems I was right!"  
  
Aside from growing taller and perhaps a little plumper around the middle, Edward supposes he hasn't altered much since his school days. The better part of his life is still given over to his books, and he's still floating around at the periphery of other people's lives, watching them from the outside and never quite having the courage or the determination to join in.  
  
It would be a disquieting realisation to strike anywhere, but especially so here, in a heaving ballroom, when Edward has no opportunity to be alone with it and turn it over in his mind at his leisure until he comes to understand what it means to him.  
  
In an effort to disguise his uneasiness, he forces a smile to his lips and jokes weakly, "Well, I do wear spectacles now."  
  
"That'll be all that reading!"  
  
Colonel Elkins laughs again and delivers a slap to Edward's back so resounding that he stumbles forward a step, almost losing his grip on his wineglass in the process. A splash of wine overflows the glass's rim and splatters Edward's breeches, the dark, ruddy stain spreading quickly across the light fabric.  
  
Colonel Elkins doesn't seem to notice, and after giving a swiftly bobbed bow of farewell, marches militarily off in the direction from which he had come, presumably to meet up with his wife in order to inform her that Edward is indeed still just as peculiar as he had been as a child.  
  
Left to his own devices again, Edward dabs at his damp breeches with his handkerchief, but only succeeds in staining that too. The soiled handkerchief is at least simply dealt with, shoved into the hidden inside pocket of his tailcoat, but his sole recourse where the breeches are concerned would be finding a corner dark enough to disguise his shame and remaining there for the rest of the night.  
  
Though the idea is a tempting one, Edward resists its allure as he had promised Mama that he would not hide himself away as his usual habit during balls. He will stand as proud as can reasonably be expected of a man with besmirched breeches and be at ease, be approachable, once more.  
  
His fares no better at this second effort than he did at the first. He is overlooked, ignored, and has just about resigned himself to a lonely night of watching other people dance and mentally critiquing their form when he notices a familiar figure on the opposite side of the ballroom.  
  
Lord Hugh Lightholder: adept mage, bon vivant, and the closest Edward can claim to a friend nowadays.  
  
At this distance, Edward can admire him in a way he never dares to when they are face to face, letting his eyes trace the lines of Hugh's well-turned calves, trim waist, and sharp profile as he moves through the crowd with sinuous grace, pausing only to drop a word into this lady's ear or brush a glancing touch against that gentlemen's arm. They all flush and smile at him, and something ugly and unseemly stirs in Edward's guts, though he doesn't know himself whether his jealousy has been awakened by Hugh himself, for how effortlessly he comports himself in company, or by those he is giving his attentions to.  
  
Edward isn't quite quick enough in looking away when Hugh circulates towards his side of the room, and he accidentally catches Hugh's eye. Hugh nods in acknowledgement but doesn't extend a formal greeting, and Edward does not expect him to.  
  
In life, Hugh's father was Edward's papa's dearest friend, and since his untimely passing, Hugh has visited the Blackmore estate once a week to share an insipid meal of the bland pap that is all Edward's papa can stomach these days and then, once Papa and Mama have taken to their beds, he humours Edward's thirst for his company by joining him in his study.  
  
Within it, he lights two cigars with a sparkling flick of his fingers which still makes Edward's heart flutter even after so many years of their same routine, and they drink port and talk of Edward's research and Hugh's misadventures until the fire and candles burn low.  
  
Those visits are the highlight of Edward's otherwise uneventful weeks, but he's always suspected that they are nothing more than a duty to Hugh, performed out of respect for his father's memory. It comes as a great surprise, therefore, when Hugh brushes aside the clinging hand of an exceedingly handsome young gentleman and tells him: "I've seen a friend I really must talk to."  
  
Perhaps it had merely been an excuse to escape the gentleman's clutches – which are most persistent, and he goes so far as to make another grab for Hugh as he's walking away – but Edward finds he doesn't much care, either way. Hugh is so much more striking up close, his breeches and stockings fitted as tight as a second skin, his teeth, his hazel eyes and chestnut hair all gleaming.  
  
Even his hands look elegant somehow, despite him not wearing the fine white cotton gloves of the other ball-goers, but a pair made from heavy black leather. The sort all mages favour, to hide the scarring of their palms.  
  
He does not lay one of those black-clad hands on Edward's arm, as Edward had seen him do with the other gentlemen he talked to, but instead offers a deep bow.  
  
"Edward," he says, his voice pitched low and sounding so intimate that it makes Edward shiver even though he knows that Hugh talks to everyone in the same fashion, even Edward's cantankerous old papa. "I didn't expect to see you here."  
  
"Nor I you," Edward says. If he had, he would not have accepted Lady Harding's invitation. Talking to Hugh often leaves him flustered, which is humiliating enough in the safety and privacy of his own home with no-one else there to bear witness to his blushes. "I thought you were staying in the countryside with friends."  
  
"I was," Hugh says, "but I had obligations in town that necessitated my return."  
  
"Ah, yes. Dinner with Mama and Papa," Edward suggests, teasing. "You've already missed one, I'm sure you wouldn't want to miss another."  
  
"Our dinners are a pleasure, not an obligation."  
  
The words are so smoothly spoken that Edward could almost believe they were the truth, and the very blush he had been wanting to avoid rises to his cheeks.  
  
"My father will be happy to see you," he says, staunchly disregarding his own feelings on the matter, as his colour will only heighten yet further if he does not.  
  
Hugh inclines his head to accept the point, and they both lapse into silence for a moment wherein Hugh looks Edward over, thorough and evaluative. His eyes widen slightly when he notes the stain on Edward's breeches, but he spares him the embarrassment of mentioning it, instead saying, "I understand Lady Harding had despaired of you ever accepting one of her invitations. Apparently, you are never short of a reason to refuse them. Either your mama will have taken ill, your papa be indisposed, or you will have conceived of a sudden and urgent need to rearrange your coin collection by date of minting rather than denomination."  
  
"As is right and proper," Edward says as he always says. They have argued about the same subject many times, typically at the end of a night when they both have enough port inside them that such trifling affairs seem to be of the utmost importance.  
  
"And I fear I may never be able to persuade you otherwise." Hugh smiles just a little, his mouth curling up at one corner. "A ball is hardly a fitting venue to discuss such serious topics, though, and we should postpone our debate to another time. I would say that we should speak of dancing, but I have not seen you dance once yet. Why _did_ you come here tonight, Edward?" The question sounds more concerned than accusatory. "You've always given me to believe you detest these sorts of entertainments."  
  
"I do, but one cannot always be sitting at home, no matter how comfortable it might be," Edward says. "It’s high time for me to socialise more; meet new people."  
  
"I sense your mama's hand in this," Hugh says.  
  
"Yes, she did encourage it. She says that I ought to think about marrying, and sooner rather than later."  
  
"And you're considering it?"  
  
"I'm not just considering it; I've made up my mind on the matter." Edward nods firmly. "She's right."  
  
Hugh blinks at him, slow and bewildered. "I thought you weren't interested in that sort of thing, either," he says.  
  
"I told you that?"  
  
"Well, not in so many words," Hugh concedes. "But you intimated, or maybe I assumed…"  
  
When they were younger, Edward supposed that he had talked very romantically about devoting himself to his studies, and how he could be satisfied even if his books were his only companions, but that future appears increasingly unattractive the closer he comes to living in it.  
  
His sister has recently married and moved to the other end of the country, beyond the reach of easy travel, and his few friends have either done the same or else are so wrapped up in their own, private concerns that they have little time to spare him anymore. As Mama and Papa tire more easily now, and are retiring to bed earlier and earlier, Edward's lonely evenings feel to stretch impossibly long, no matter how deeply he immerses himself in his research.  
  
He does not miss attending parties and balls, but he does often find himself wishing that he had someone to share the quiet with, both of them working on their own pursuits and both content just to know that the other is close at hand. And then, as night drew in, to share a snifter and conversation with in front of the fire, whiling away the dark hours before bed. And from there…  
  
From there lies an avenue of thought that wends in a direction unbecoming for travelling along in public, and most especially in the presence of his current companion. With practiced ease, Edward stops himself from setting so much as a mental foot upon it.  
  
"Matrimony does have its appeals," he says.  
  
"I suppose so," Hugh says, somewhat dubiously to Edward's ear, but then he has never professed to be a devotee of the institution himself.  
  
Hugh's father used to say that Hugh received marriage proposals as frequently as he did haircuts but, to Edward's knowledge, he has turned down every one. His romances are far more fleeting affairs and, by all accounts, even greater in number  
  
Edward's father calls him a libertine, though never to Hugh's face.  
  
"So… I suppose you will be looking for a young lady or gentleman who's clever, interested in magic, and perhaps even a mage?" Hugh says. "Handsome goes without saying. As fond of the country as they are of town, and a proficient at the pianoforte, as I know it gives you great pleasure to have music in the evening when you're not working on your book. Maybe titled, but certainly in possession of a fortune in proportion to your own."  
  
Hugh continues in the same vein for some time, spinning the list of qualities and accomplishments of Edward's imagined suitor out into absurdity. If a person of such exalted talents did actually exist, they would have far better marriage prospects than Edward.  
  
"I would be searching forever, if those were my requirements," Edward says, interrupting Hugh in mid-flow. "They would just have to be kind, and not mind listening to me ramble on about my work every once in a while."  
  
"Then you'd be selling yourself very cheaply, my friend," Hugh says, giving Edward a doleful look. "Now, I am acquainted with many people here tonight, and though they are not all abundant in either kindness or patience, I can think of a couple who might suit. If you'll excuse me" – he bows to Edward again – "I shall go and inquire as to whether I can introduce them to you."

* * *

  
  
At supper, Edward exchanges a few, stilted words about the weather with the lady sat to his left at the table, but their nascent bid towards conversation is cut short by the arrival of a much more interesting gentleman who sits down on her other side and monopolises her attention in an instant.  
  
Edward concentrates on his pigeon pie until his attention is diverted in turn by Hugh, who hurls himself down into the free seat to Edward's right so violently that it's a wonder that the chair doesn't collapse beneath him.  
  
He ignores Edward's greeting and, in a show of poor manners that Edward has never seen him display before, reaches out over the laden table to help himself to a small sprig of grapes from the silver bowl set at its centre. He pops one of the fruits into his mouth and then bites down on it hard. The muscles of his jaw clench tight as he grinds his teeth together, his eyebrows draw down low in a disgruntled frown, and he looks very much like he is chewing on a mouthful of grit.  
  
Nevertheless, he eats two more grapes in quick succession, slouching over the plate a waiting servant belatedly places in front of him. The sharp arc of his hunched shoulder blades distorts the otherwise clean lines of his tailcoat, and puts Edward in mind of a defensive hedgehog, rolled up tight and presenting its spines.  
  
Hugh's mood is normally sanguine, but on those rare occasions that his temper has frayed when they pass time together, Edward has sought to offer him comfort by placing a hand on his back. Now that he is holding himself so stiffly, Edward fears, irrationally, that Hugh's entire body might shatter into pieces if he were to touch him, so he can only ask – quietly and unobtrusively, so as not to startle him, "Are you all right, Hugh?"  
  
"What?" Hugh snaps, and then immediately looks guilty. "I'm sorry, I… Yes, I'm fine. I just…" He sighs heavily. "How are you? How goes your quest? Have you danced with anyone yet?"  
  
"Sadly not," Edward says, though in truth his search for potential partners has become even more desultory now that he knows Hugh is present. He has been looking for him instead, hoping to catch a glimpse of him amongst the thronged masses of strangers in the ballroom, though that search has been as much in vain as the other. "And you? Have you managed to track down any of those kind, patient people you wanted to introduce to me?"  
  
"They've proved elusive so far," Hugh says with a strange twist to his lips that Edward finds impossible to interpret.  
  
Hugh hurls the denuded grape stem to his plate and then staggers to his feet in such an ungainly and harried a manner that he has grab hold of the edge of the table to keep himself from overbalancing. Edward has never seen him lose so much of his natural poise before, even when he's so stewed that he's lost the power of coherent speech. Unthinking, Edward reaches out to steady him, but Hugh sidesteps away from his hand.  
  
"And I'm not likely to find any of them in here," Hugh continues. "So…."  
  
He stalks out of the dining room and into the ballroom proper, leaving his last word hanging suspended, naked of any of the customary apologies or farewells he would normally deliver in order to soften his departure.  
  
Incivility is also uncharacteristic of him, and when taken together with his scowls and his clumsiness, it suggests he is more seriously out of sorts than Edward has ever known him to be. He fears that Hugh might be unwell, and his anxiety over that prospect robs him of the enjoyment he would otherwise have felt in eating the rest of his really quite excellent pigeon pie.

* * *

  
After finishing his unsatisfactory supper, Edward suffers through another abortive and equally unsatisfactory attempt at endearing himself to a pleasant lady that Lady Harding had introduced him to upon finding him standing alone and unpartnered, and then his will to continue subjecting himself to the entire futile exercise abruptly gives out.  
  
He is more exhausted than the hour can possibly account for, bone-weary in a way he has not experienced since his days as a rowing blue, and fit for nothing more than sitting quietly on one of the chairs arrayed at the back of the ballroom. There situated, he checks his pocket watch and is horrified to discover it is even earlier than he had anticipated, one full hour remaining until the time he had ordered his carriage to arrive.  
  
Playing cards does not appeal, so there is nothing to be done but to watch the crowds again, the distracting shimmer of colourful, swirling dresses and dazzling glint of jewels and buffed brass buttons reflecting the candlelight. He does not see Hugh amongst their number, not for ten, twenty, approaching thirty minutes, and his earlier anxiety resurfaces. If Hugh truly is ill, then he might have sought peace and quiet in the gardens or some little used room and passed out beyond the notice of anyone.  
  
Edward is on the verge of setting out in search of him when the man himself reappears, squeezing past a large group of braying militia men gathered only a few feet away. He looks decidedly rumpled, his cravat askew and the tails of his coat deeply creased, and smells of cigar smoke and rather more strongly of brandy. His hair is standing up in wild tufts above his ears, as though he has been running his hands through it or tugging on it compulsively for some time.  
  
_Or someone else has_. The thought is a fleeting one, and Edward dismisses it determinedly. It is no business of his if they have and dwelling on such possibilities only leads him towards melancholy, anyway. He has had quite enough of that for one night as it is.  
  
"Still no partner?" Hugh says, gesturing towards the empty chairs to either side of Edward.  
  
"No," Edward says, "but perhaps I'll have better luck at my next ball."  
  
Which will be next year at the earliest, more than likely. It will take him at least that long to recover from this one and shore up his defences for attending another.  
  
"I assume your carriage will be bearing you away at the stroke of midnight, just as it used to," Hugh says. After receiving Edward's confirmatory nod, he adds, "Well, you can't leave a ball without having danced even once." He holds out his hand, palm flat and upraised. "Would you do me the honour of dancing the next with me?"  
  
On the surface, it's a kind offer, but Edward is suspicious of it. They attended the same balls many times in their younger years and Hugh has never once asked Edward to dance before, nor given any indication that he might be inclined to do so, even though Edward was never burdened by an overabundance of potential partners at any of them.  
  
His luck was never as poor then as it has been tonight, though, and Edward presumes that Hugh's question was inspired by pity. He should probably take umbrage at that and refuse him, but he has dreamt of this moment too often for injuries to his pride to hold any sway.  
  
He places his hand in Hugh's and Hugh uses it to pull him to his feet, but then swiftly drops it again. When they move across the ballroom, he maintains a hand's-breadth of distance between them so that their arms do not brush together as they walk.  
  
Edward takes no insult from his behaviour, as it has always been this way. Barring the handshakes that begin and end their weekly dinner engagements, Hugh seldom touches him. So seldom, in fact, that Edward remembers each time distinctly, the memories still vivid and rich in detail due to having been revisited so often over the years since they occurred.  
  
A press of Hugh's fingertips to the inside of his wrist when Edward took ill after too many sleepless nights in a row spent writing; a congratulatory clasp to the back of his neck when his first book was published; a brief embrace on the day of Hugh's father's funeral service.  
  
Edward has long suspected that Hugh has guessed the depths of his feelings and, not wanting to encourage them, avoids all unnecessary physical contact as a consequence, so he is astonished when they reach the dancefloor and he sees that the couples already gathered there are standing in the closed position.  
  
"The next will be a waltz," he says to Hugh, thinking he must have overlooked the tell-tale postures of the other dancers somehow.  
  
The waltz had been considered quite scandalous when Edward was a boy, unfit for decent society, and Papa had forbidden Edward's dance master from teaching him the steps. Edward had had to learn them at university, far away from Papa's censorious eye. His teacher then had been a young lady with whom the waltz had been the least scandalous of the acts they had practised together.

It is still a much more intimate dance than a quadrille or cotillion; too intimate, Edward would have thought, for a man who is so assiduous about keeping his distance from him at all other times.  
  
But Hugh says, "I know," which Edward can scarcely credit.  
  
Nonetheless, that careful hand's-breadth between them remains until the first note of the waltz sounds, whereupon Hugh clutches hold of Edward's right hand with his left, snakes his other arm around Edward's waist, and pulls him so closely against his chest that Edward can feel his heart pounding out a frenzied rhythm against the cage of his ribs. Edward's own heart speeds up to match it.  
  
Hugh's hands tighten, his fingers clawing into Edward's knuckles and the bony jut of his right hip, and power streams from them. Hugh's magic, flowing through Edward's body in pulsing waves, and the thrill of it, of Hugh's closeness, is intoxicating. Everything else fades away save for the harsh sound of Hugh's breathing: the music, the chatter of voices, even the ballroom itself, which dissolves into a muddied, featureless blur.  
  
Disoriented, Edward can only follow where Hugh leads him; first, in several stately circuits around the dancefloor and from there to the dark corner in which Edward had considered hiding himself following his misadventure with Colonel Elkins.  
  
In the shadows, Hugh presses a kiss to the back of Edward's hand. It's not a simple peck of gratitude; his lips linger and they're _scalding_. His eyes, when he lifts them to Edward's, are even hotter, burning with a question.  
  
Edward knows then that he could have Hugh to his bed with a single word. Every heated part of him aches for it, but he hesitates, because he also knows that it would likely be for no more than a single night.  
  
He would not call Hugh a libertine, but his affections have always been fickle and short-lived, and Edward would not be content with one night or even one hundred. He would always yearn for something greater than that small taste and doubtless ruin himself for anyone else. Even more so than he already has been.  
  
Reluctantly, he steps back. "I'm not interested in a fling, Hugh," he says. "I'm looking for my partner in life."  
  
"Well," Hugh says, and he smiles, wide and beaming impossibly bright. "This time, I think I am too."


End file.
